


Fly or Fall

by marythefan (marylex)



Category: lotrips
Genre: AU, Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, Other, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-28
Updated: 2005-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:17:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marylex/pseuds/marythefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feather and blood and bone, smoke and steel and cinders, shadow and argent and pearl.<br/>Nine sets of wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly or Fall

_i. John_

At times, it's almost impossible to tell where John ends and his books begin, the gold-brushed cream of parchment wings enfolding him like sheaves of aged pages, inscribed with dark patterns of arcane messages. They blur into the tomes spread out before him, filled with the wisdom of heaven and earth.

Dominic always expects John's wings to be brittle - dusty dry bones and razored feathers leaving tiny stinging cuts across the pads of his fingers - but they're warm and strong, pliant and alive, a rustling echo of the ever-changing languages that flow off John's tongue in honeyed cinnamon pear-shaped tones.

 

_ii. Elijah_

Angels aren't designed for true flight - the will of God keeps them aloft when physics and physiology fail.

Viggo knows this, so he wonders how Elijah still floats on funereal wings, midnight velvet shadows of his former glory - not shadows weak and sere that flee from the light but formed of a soft encompassing darkness shot through and roiling with rich, oil-slick purples and greens, livid as a bruise where the light glances across and off of them.

Elijah has fallen, though Viggo tried to catch him. The will of God no longer bears him up.

And yet, he soars.

 

_iii. Sean B._

Sean's sin is not defiance, but despair. The weight of sorrow dragged him down long before he fell.

The only one his wings enfold now is Elijah, a reflexive convulsion, the warm haven of his once-coppery feathers gone dark, like cinders, bitter wine and old blood - heart's blood spilled for each of his lost charges. When Elijah runs his fingers through Sean's feathers, he always expects to pull back hands smudged with powdery remains like rust.

He wonders if Sean will crumble away to dust entirely, or if the red-hot spark of anger at his heart will keep him alive.

 

_iv. Dom_

God's protection is sturdy and sure, and so Dominic's wings gleam argent and pearl, an aegis and armor spread bright and enduring against evil. God's wrath descends like lightning, and so Dominic's wings burn white-hot incandescent like his sword, filled with the fire of righteousness.

A warrior of light, he's a vision of God's glory: a powerful sweep of strong arms and snowy feathers, driven by a fierce, divine joy.

Later, the splashes of sticky, wet warmth that feather crimson across his wingtips like raw wounds, drying to faded sepia stains, will be invisible to any eyes but his own.

 

_v. Billy_

Billy's wings were the first fascination, tender green feathers darkening - glossy, lush, verdant - and drawing Elijah's fingertips in the heavy summer heat. Faerie and fey, they're a glorious riot of color in autumn, honey-gold shading into crimson and titian, sweet taboo against Elijah's lips before they fade. Soft grey down like the haze of fog on a winter mountainside gives way to skeletal black latticework, misted with dew and ice-rimed in the cold, clattering like ancient fingerbones when Elijah brushes against them.

He waits to see them flower anew in spring, translucent white and flushed soft pink like cherry blossoms.

 

_vi. Sean A_

Some say Sean's wings are drab - muted plumage like a plain brown sparrow - but Elijah remembers bronze and buff like good ale, shot through with glossy strands of honey and cinnamon that warmed his fingers before he ever knew those tastes on his tongue. He remembers tawny, soft down and a warm cradle thrumming with blood against his own once-gleaming wings as they slept, fingers and breath enlaced.

Now, he watches hungrily from his shadows as Sean curls the shelter of those wings - a shimmering screen invisible to mortal eyes - around his latest charge as she whispers a blind prayer.

 

_vii. Viggo_

Ian knows Viggo's never wittingly careless when he reaches to touch the young ones around him, enthralled by the curve of a luminous cheek, the lush pillow of a lower lip, the caress of a lustrous feather against his roughened fingertips. Rapt in the artistic inspiration he grants, he burns with pure creative fire.

He can't see the fingerprints he leaves smudged on their hearts as surely as he leaves scribbled graffiti on the edges of his own cobalt wings in the throes of inspiration - black ink running over sapphire in strange spiderweb runes, shapes conveying only bits of meaning.

 

_viii. Ian_

Ian stands dignified, a statue of burnished steel and spun glass, as he delivers the word of God in sonorous tones, wings of gunmetal grey and smoke raised high, feathering down into milky opalescence. He is voice - representative and symbol - and he knows how others see him, austere and solemn, the chill of moonlight skating across pearl.

Yet he's more than his office, and it amuses him - and sometimes saddens him, too - to see the surprise of those who manage to glimpse the lighthearted mirth beneath his formal mask.

Ian knows God loves joy as much as he loves grace.

 

_ix. Orlando_

Orlando feels the sweep of ink and paint over parchment as if it's flowing through the grain of his body, uncoiling in his limbs, stretching his muscles sensuously tight. His wings flush with heat as his artist skims strong fingers over the form taking shape, and he leans further in, so close his wingtips almost graze a mortal cheek, to whisper divine inspiration into a listening ear.

Sunlight filters through radiant feathers, gold on gold, to slide warm across their faces as the artist moves in response to his words, and Orlando's wings quiver from saffron arch to creamy tip.


End file.
